People

﻿Mark Gateshill, Musical Director & Conductor was
born and brought up in South London where he began studying violin with
Helen and Douglas Paterson at the age of ten.
From London his family moved to Surrey where he played for Surrey
County Youth Orchestra. He then went on to study Music at the
University
of Exeter where he led both the Symphony Orchestra and Chamber
Orchestras. It was through these ensembles that he was given the
opportunity
to start conducting on a regular basis - including conducting the
Chamber Orchestra on their tour of Estonia. On graduating Mark took up
a
post as a Graduate Music assistant at Wells Cathedral School for
two years. In September 2009 he took up conducting posts as Musical
Director with Frome Symphony and Winscombe Orchestras, and in
January 2010 he was appointed Head of Strings and violin teacher at
Bristol
Cathedral Choir School. Mark currently teaches violin, coaches
the string quartet and conducts the county youth orchestra for North
Somerset
Music Service, the North Somerset Sinfonia, with whom he has toured Germany and Poland. He is also a member of the funky horn,
violin
and oboe trio Ensemble 3 who specialise in outreach and community
based projects. This is all combined with playing regularly throughout
the
region as a freelance violinist.﻿

Tom Budden, Leader of the Orchestra was born
in Plymouth and started his musical career on the piano. After beginning his
studies on the violin in primary school, it was during his teenage years that
he really began to take it seriously. He joined the Devon County Youth
Orchestra, for which he played principal second violin, the Plymouth Symphony
Orchestra and the South West Camerata, an unconducted Youth String Orchestra
based in the South West directed by Fiona McLean-Buechel, currently teaching at
the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, who has also been his
teacher since completing Grade 8 in 2005. Since leaving Plymouth, Tom has been
an active orchestral and chamber musician. He played in the Imperial College
Symphony Orchestra, Imperial College Sinfonietta, University of London Symphony
Orchestra and Imperial College String Ensemble, which he led and with whom he
has also performed several concertos. With these orchestras, he also had the
opportunity to go on concert tours in Romania, Berlin, Porto and the Czech
Republic. During university, he also played violin in several string quartets
and piano in a piano trio and quintet, as well as graduating with first class
honours in Chemistry. Since moving to Somerset for work, he has been an active
member in the Bath Symphony Orchestra, Argyle String Orchestra and, more
recently, Frome Symphony, as well as the Enigma Orchestra founded
in Bristol for young professionals.

Stephen Marquiss, Frome Symphony founder and regular piano soloist, began his piano studies at the age of seven with Peter Sage-Passant in Frome, Somerset. He won a Specialist scholarship to Wells Cathedral School, aged 11, where he studied with John Byrne and went on to become an ABRSM prize-winner, a BBC Young Musicians Semi-finalist and a finalist in the Ettlingen International Competition for Young Pianists in Germany. Stephen continued his musical studies at Christ's College, Cambridge, and, whilst an undergraduate, received piano tuition in New York City with Sophia Rosoff, a pioneering teacher and editor of the works of the great Abby Whiteside, one of the most original minds in the field of piano pedagogy. This interest and association formed the backdrop of Stephen's passionate investigation into the ergonomics of piano playing, early years musical development and freedom in performance. His work is featured in Clive Stocker's recently published book, How to become a confident performer. Stephen spearheaded many lively community musical groups and projects in his native Somerset for almost a decade, founding the thriving Frome Symphony in 2001 and staging many unique concert events and workshops. He has concurrently taught piano and Pre-Prep music classes at Hazlegrove Preparatory School in Sparkford, Somerset, and worked for two years as a piano accompanist at Wells Cathedral School. Stephen has performed internationally as a soloist and accompanist, including concertos by Beethoven, Grieg and Mozart and a solo Mozart recital at the RPO's Glastonbury Extravaganza Mozart 250th Anniversary concert. Stephen will perform a solo recital next month in Denmark and has been invited back to play in a summer festival in the Alps. Stephen has forged successful duo partnerships with singers Belinda Evans and Cindy Stratton, headlining Picnic in the Park events, playing on Cindy's 2012 album, Portraits of life and love and recently recording a charity double-A-side record with Belinda entitled Frail Birds. Stephen recently took a step back from community projects and accompanying in order to refocus on his own piano playing, and to finish and hone his unique Piano Portals: beautiful pieces for finding freedom, facility and flow in piano playing. Whilst the second, multimedia version of the latter is in progress, Stephen is currently preparing to record an album featuring his exciting new piano collection, Joshua's Fire, paired with works by Chopin.

Lukas Hank, violin soloist: was born
in Germany in 1992, moved to the United Kingdom at the age
of 5 and began learning the violin 2 years later. He studied with
Kathryn Hardman in Bristol from the age of 13, until gaining a place at
the Royal Academy of Music for September 2010. For
four years Lukas was principal violin of the North Somerset Youth
Orchestra and gave his debut concerto performance with this orchestra in
2008. As leader of the Sinfonia quartet, Lukas was asked to perform for
the Queen during her visit to Somerset in 2007. In this same year he
won a place in the National Youth Chamber Orchestra of Great Britain and
gave several concerts throughout the UK. Lukas has given regular solo
performances with piano and orchestra throughout the South West,
including several concerto performances with orchestras in Somerset,
Bristol, Frome, Stroud and Oxford. He has also performed as a soloist at
St.George’s and at the Colston Hall in Bristol. Currently
studying under the 'Joseph Bloch' scholarship at the Academy with
international soloist Remus Azoitei, Lukas has also received master
classes and coaching with other internationally acclaimed violinists
including Pavel Fischer, Jack Liebeck, Thomas Brandis and Maxim
Vengerov. As a keen chamber musician, Lukas plays in the Arensky Quartet
(formed at the Academy in 2012), and is looking forward to a busy
concert schedule with them throughout 2013-14. As part of his previous
quartet Lukas performed a recital at Wigmore Hall and was featured on a
BBC documentary about Lloyd Coleman, a composer at the Academy. Lukas plays a Giuseppe Desiato violin made in 1890.